Princess Diana once made a heartbreaking admission to Katie Couric during a brief meeting in 1996. Years later, the veteran journalist still remembers Diana’s comment about returning to an empty house. Couric revisited the encounter while speaking with Diana’s brother, Charles Spencer, about the late royal’s final years.
Katie Couric revealed the candid comment Princess Diana made about her life at home
Couric shared the memory on her Next Question podcast while interviewing Spencer about his memoir, Swan Song: Diana, My Sister. The two women met at a breast cancer research luncheon in Chicago in June 1996.
Couric recalled sitting two seats away from Diana. According to the journalist, the princess complimented her lipstick and asked her for parenting advice.
Diana specifically wanted help limiting Prince William and Prince Harry’s television time. However, the conversation later took a much more personal turn.
Couric said she acknowledged how exhausting Diana’s busy trip must have been. She then asked whether the royal looked forward to returning home.
Diana’s response stayed with her. “Yes, but I’ll be going home to an empty house,” Couric recalled Diana telling her, according to People.
At the time, Diana was approaching the end of her marriage to then-Prince Charles. Their divorce became final in August 1996. Meanwhile, William and Harry were away at school.
The comment offered Couric a glimpse into Diana’s private life. Spencer also admitted during the podcast that he did not fully understand how unhappy his sister had become. He said her involvement with Andrew Morton’s 1992 biography helped him realize the extent of her struggles.
More recently, questions about Diana’s private life have resurfaced around Spencer’s memoir. Her former bodyguard also weighed in on the complicated Althorp housing dispute that followed her separation.
Other accounts have also revisited Diana’s final years. A royal author recently claimed she still had complicated feelings about King Charles before her death.
For Couric, though, that brief 1996 conversation remains especially vivid.
Behind the glamour and relentless royal attention, Diana’s remark about an empty house revealed a much lonelier reality.
